Greece Names Its First Astronaut Candidate—but Five Partners Must Approve

Greece has selected ESA flight surgeon Adrianos Golemis for a proposed mission-specialist seat that could make him the first Greek astronaut. In its September 9, 2026 mission announcement, ESA said the flight to the International Space Station is planned for 2027 but remains subject to Multilateral Crew Operations Panel review and consensus approval by representatives of all five station partners.

The assignment was presented at the International Space Summit in Paris after ESA signed an agreement with Vast on Greece’s behalf. A parallel release from Vast identifies Thomas Pesquet as commander, Aleš Svoboda as pilot and Golemis as mission specialist, with SpaceX providing a Dragon spacecraft launched by Falcon 9.

What is announced, planned, contracted and pending

The project combines decisions that have already been made with plans that remain conditional. Golemis has received an ESA Project Astronaut appointment and can begin preparing for the mission, but neither step constitutes final authorization to fly.

• Announced: Greece has selected Golemis, and ESA has appointed him as a Project Astronaut. He is the proposed mission specialist alongside Pesquet and Svoboda.
• Planned: Vast intends to send the crew to the International Space Station in 2027. The final crew member and a precise launch date have not been made public.
• Contracted: ESA has signed with Vast on Greece’s behalf. The planned flight is Vast’s first private astronaut mission to the station and forms part of NASA’s private-astronaut programme.
• Training: Golemis is entering mission-specific preparation in Europe and the United States, including work associated with the launch vehicle, spacecraft and emergency procedures.
• Pending: The proposed crew requires MCOP review and a consensus decision from the station partnership.

The different labels attached to the flight can obscure its status. Vast calls it Vast-PAM-1 because it is the company’s first private astronaut mission to the ISS, while NASA treats it as the sixth mission arranged through its broader private-astronaut initiative. These are two descriptions of the same planned flight, not separate missions.

Training can begin before the seat is approved

Golemis’s appointment allows the preparation process to move forward while the crew decision remains open. His programme is expected to cover the mission from launch through return to Earth, with modules conducted in Europe and the United States.

The US portion is set to involve teams from Vast, SpaceX and NASA. SpaceX’s contribution includes familiarization with Falcon 9 and Dragon, emergency preparation, spacesuit work, spacecraft ingress and egress, and partial and full mission simulations.

That training has operational value even though it does not settle the approval question. Candidate appointment, mission preparation and permission to join an ISS crew are separate stages: completing one does not automatically satisfy the others.

How Greece’s seat is being assembled

Greece is funding a national astronaut objective and has asked ESA to implement it. ESA is acting as the country’s institutional partner, bringing human-spaceflight expertise to mission preparation, prospective scientific payloads, microgravity experiments and post-flight rehabilitation.

Vast is organizing the private mission through the opportunity awarded under NASA’s programme. NASA supplies the institutional route to an ISS visit and coordinates station access, while SpaceX is responsible for transportation to and from orbit. The arrangement therefore joins a nationally backed seat to European mission support, a US commercial mission provider, NASA’s station framework and SpaceX’s launch and crew vehicle.

The financial terms remain unclear. Independent reporting by TNW found that the price of Greece’s seat was not disclosed, leaving the mission’s payment structure outside the public record.

The flight is also intended to offer opportunities for Greek experiments and technology demonstrations in areas such as medicine, human physiology, agri-food, materials and sensors. Those categories do not amount to a finalized payload manifest: no selected experiments, participating institutions, hardware allocations or research schedule have been publicly detailed.

Five partners must agree on the proposed crew

The decisive outstanding step is not a series of five public votes. The Multilateral Crew Operations Panel reaches decisions by consensus among representatives of NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

That review applies to the proposed crew rather than to Greece’s political decision to pursue the mission. The national selection, the agreement between ESA and Vast, the proposed crew roles and the choice of transport can all exist before the station partnership grants final crew approval.

Other uncertainties would remain even after a positive MCOP decision. The mission still lacks an exact launch date, the final crew member has not been identified publicly, training must be completed, and station traffic can affect scheduling.

Golemis is therefore Greece’s first astronaut candidate with a defined mission assignment, not yet a finally approved ISS passenger. The next material developments will be the remaining crew announcement, the MCOP decision and a more precise flight schedule for the planned 2027 mission.

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